Today, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva – founder of Opus Dei: a way of sanctification of work and the fulfillment of the Christian’s ordinary duties. Initially, St. Josemaria didn’t really want to start anything. He was hoping that the charism God showed him on October 2, 1928 could be found in some other institution in the Church. But, after searching long and hard and not finding this charism being lived, he came to the conclusion that he had to start promoting the call to holiness in the middle of the world, for the average lay man and woman. St. John Paul II called St. Josemaria (at his canonization on October 6, 2002) the “Saint of the ordinary”. Back in 1928, if one really wanted to be a saint, you considered becoming a priest or joining a religious institution. But a married person can’t really do that. St. Josemaria lived and taught that the pathway to Heaven, for the majority of people, is found in the hustle and bustle of the world, summed up in St. Josemaria’s book “The Way of the Cross”, station 11, meditation topic #3 “Jesus wants to be raised on high, there: in the noise of the factories and workshops, in the silence of libraries, in the loud clamor of the streets, in the stillness of the fields, in the intimacy of the family, in crowded gatherings, in stadiums… Wherever there is a Christian striving to lead an honorable life, he should, with his love, set up the Cross of Christ, who attracts all things to Himself.”
Let us strive to be a saint, to be holy: to freely embrace (say yes to) Grace: the love of God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit seeking us to embrace!
